Tag Archives: Charity

Yesterday we launched an exciting social program to support of our Walgreens Flu Season campaign. Every time you check in to a Walgreens location on foursquare or Facebook Places, Walgreens will donate 1 flu voucher, up to 200,000, to someone in need. That’s right, it’s that simple. You check in. We donate a flu voucher.

But, what does someone in need mean? Well, we’ve partnered with 5 great charities:

AmeriCares

American Diabetes Association

National Urban League

Feeding America

League of United Latin American Citizens

Our fans on Facebook, by way of voting, will determine what percentage of the 200,000 flu vouchers each charity receives.

For those of you who like the nitty gritty details, this is how the voting mechanics work:

Walgreens is providing 20,000 vouchers for $10 flu shots as a base donation to each participating organization for distribution to qualified individuals. So right off the bat, every charity is being rewarded equally.

But, then, each organization will receive an incremental allocation of flu shot vouchers, which will be determined by the total number of votes received. Distribution among organizations will be as follows:

Top vote-getter – 30 percent

Second place – 25 percent

Third place – 20 percent

Fourth place – 15 percent

Fifth place – 10 percent

There’s a lot to love about this program, but my favorite aspect is that it gives our customers 2 distinct ways to participate:

Check in to fill the bucket

Vote to determine how the bucket is shared

There was a lot of hard work and great thinking that brought this to program to life. foursquare, continues to be a great partner. Their support has been strong and consistent. Our team at Digitas cranked on all the creative, including the development of the voting engine. Lastly, the internal team at Walgreens stayed committed to the idea…even when we hit some large and wide brick walls.

It takes a village sometimes to make amazing programs like this a reality. As I’ve mentioned in the past, Social at Walgreens need to deliver a return on investment AND a return on amazing. This program, like the national redbox initiative we launched a few weeks ago, delivers on both.

Twitter is fast becoming an over saturated destination for people to “beg” for money. Whether it’s money for Daniela (which I gave $100.00) or Sarah Evans asking for sponsors to fund a conference, twitter is fast becoming the hip place to ask for money. You’ll hear people like Chris Brogan asking for only $10.00 for a good cause. I mean, heck what’s $10.00. Well it’s not much till you keep giving $10.00 to every single cause or request on twitter. And trust me there are 1,000s.

Twitter is starting to resemble an episode of South Park titled, “Night of the Living Homeless.” In this episode:

“The number of homeless people in South Park is increasing as they eat, sleep, and beg for change across the town. While the adults try to find creative solutions to deal with the homeless, the boys are trying to figure out a way to solve the problem for good.”

Here’s a video to show you how I’m starting to feel.

Folks I’m all for a good charity. Really I am. As I noted above I gave David Armano $100 for the Daniela cause. His DM to me indicated I was the first person to donate. But, at what point do we need to draw the line? At what point does twitter simply start to resemble a bunch of people screaming for your money, while you’re just trying to have a conversation with some friends.

It’s gotta change, because I don’t have anymore change to spare. Oh – if you want to support the Susan G. Komen foundation please buy this book…you’ll learn a lot about social media in the process. I wrote chapter 2 and we could really use your spare change to make a difference.

The Project 100 is a great project. I’ve been a big supporter of the initiative and I’ve blogged about it several times in the past. In short Jeff Caswell had this fantastic idea to gather 100 brilliant minds to author a book together. Each contributor was asked to write a chapter (visuals were optional) about social media. Jeff, bless that man’s heart, then assembled all of the contributions into an actual book. The kicker is, ALL of the profits go right to the Susan G. Komen foundation. So, by purchasing the book you’re not only getting smarter, but you’re also contributing to a great cause.

If you’re looking to get smarter in the social media space, this is a great start. The book retails for $19.95 and with shipping ends up being around $25.00. Hmmm 100 thought leaders for only $25.00; that’s a damn good ROI. I ordered two copies this morning and I’d encourage you to do the same.

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Dad to Cora and John. Love ironing, bourbon and BBQ; not necessarily in that order. Living life, like I stole it. I'm always up for a spirited conversation. These are my thoughts and ramblings, not those of my employer.
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